Arizona’s N.C.A.A. Streak Quietly Ends

LOS ANGELES — As the buzzer sounded, signifying Arizona’s 75-69 loss to U.C.L.A. in the first round of the Pacific-10 tournament, the Wildcats solemnly followed their coach, Sean Miller, off the court in a single-file line.

Ten rows above, Tom Manzo and Wade Hughes wore the same look of resignation as they removed white T-shirts with handmade red and blue lettering that read: “The Streak Matters.”

“During the game, it was the streak matters,” said Manzo, an Arizona alumnus. “Then, it mattered.”

With little fanfare or resistance, Arizona’s streak of 25 consecutive N.C.A.A. appearances came to an end Thursday, the Wildcats’ loss dropping them to 16-14 and extinguishing their hopes of winning the conference tournament and an automatic bid.

This has been a season of declines for some of college basketball’s elite. Connecticut and North Carolina will not be going to the N.C.A.A. tournament, and neither will U.C.L.A. unless it wins the Pac-10 tournament.

But Arizona’s streak, which began in 1985 in Lute Olson’s second season as the Wildcats’ coach and continued the last two seasons — barely — under the interim coaches Kevin O’Neill and Russ Pennell, was a point of pride in Tucson. Only North Carolina, whose 27-year streak ended in 2001, has been to the N.C.A.A. more consecutive seasons.

“That’s all everybody knows around here — the tournament streak, the tournament streak,” said Lamont Jones, a freshman guard from Harlem. “Whether you play one round or you make it to the championship or the Elite Eight. That’s just the history of the program. Everybody expects that.”

It was something that Miller, whose team played eight freshmen and sophomores Thursday, did his best to minimize this season. With so many young players, all trying to learn a new system as well as each other, Miller has preached the long view.

“Any coach who came to Arizona to make the N.C.A.A. tournament for a 26th time is going to find he’s going to be a paranoid coach,” said Miller, who did not have his driver’s license when the streak began. “The reason I came to Arizona is to rebuild our program and, hopefully, one day get it back to the level that everybody’s watched. It’s going to take a lot of hard work. It’s not going to take one or two seasons.”

While Olson was the architect of the streak, his protracted goodbye was partly responsible for ending it.

Olson, a Hall of Fame coach, took a leave of absence just before the 2007-8 season, then announced afterward that he would return the next season. But he stepped away for good in October 2008.

Though O’Neill, now the coach at Southern California, and Pennell managed to keep the streak alive, with Pennell taking Arizona to the Round of 16 a year ago, the ambiguity over who was in charge took its toll. When Jordan Hill and Chase Budinger, now both in the N.B.A., left after last season, nobody comparable was on hand to replace them.

The circumstances might have been worse had Miller, just after he was hired, not been able to scoop up Derrick Williams, the Pac-10’s freshman of the year, and Solomon Hill and Jones — who were released from commitments to U.S.C. when Coach Tim Floyd resigned under pressure last spring. Williams and Hill are starters, and Jones is a key reserve.

“Any time there’s uncertainty, it’s going to affect recruiting,” said Bill Frieder, the former Arizona State coach who is an analyst on Pac-10 broadcasts. “For several years, kids wanted to know if they were going to play for Lute or not, and I think that took its toll.

“If Lute had been around, maybe they would have been able to salvage Brandon Jennings,” Frieder said of the Milwaukee Bucks guard who went to Europe when he was unsure if he would qualify academically at Arizona. “That might have changed things. There’s no question they’re not as talented this year.”

In years past, an Arizona-U.C.L.A. game would have been a marquee match between the two programs that have dominated the conference over the last quarter century.

But when the game tipped off at noon here, perhaps 2,000 fans were in attendance. Among them was the actor and comedian Bill Murray, who might have been more entertaining than the product on the court. The play was at times so uninspiring that the former coach Eddie Sutton pulled out a newspaper to read during several timeouts.

U.C.L.A. blew a 14-point lead in a loss last week in Tucson, but on Thursday it took control early and did not give the game away. The freshman forward Reeves Nelson, who wore goggles to protect a surgically repaired retina, returned from a four-game absence to contribute a game-high 19 points, 8-of-9 shooting and 10 rebounds.

When Nelson bulled his way past three Arizona players to grab one of his four offensive rebounds and score, Miller jumped up and yelled at his players. He called a timeout and then lit into them some more.

An hour later, when the Wildcats walked off the court for the last time, at least one player said he was acutely aware of the history this team had made. And he vowed not to repeat it.

“The people before us made that legacy,” Jones said. “Unfortunately, we’re not going to make it this year, but I guarantee we’re going to get back there next year. Being part of the team that broke the streak doesn’t sit right with me. It just doesn’t. It’s not something I feel good about — it’s not something anybody in here should feel good about. Hopefully, everybody that returns next year is going to take that to heart.”

A version of this article appears in print on March 12, 2010, on page B10 of the New York edition with the headline: Arizona’s N.C.A.A. Streak Quietly Comes to an End. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe